1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of video image storage, processing and distribution. More specifically, the present invention relates to video recording formats, and video image storage, processing, and distribution system architectures.
2. Art Background
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical prior art video image storage, processing, and distribution system. Video images are stored on video tapes 11a. Film images and video images stored on incompatible format tapes are converted to using a film and video conversion subsystem 14. To process video images 10, video signals are generated from video tape players 12 or the conversion subsystem 14 for a video image processing subsystem 16. The video images go through various editing, color correction, noise reduction, and processing steps. The processed video images are then output to a output video recorder 18, and stored onto video tapes 11b. To distribute video images 20, video tapes 11c are played using video players 22, generating video signals for a data compression engine 24. The video signal data are compressed. The compressed video data are in turn provided to a RF signal generation subsystem 26. The output RF signals are then distributed to various video receivers.
Typically, all video image processing as well as distribution equipment is designed to operate in conjunction with a particular video signal recording format. With the advance of video technology and its increased popularity, there has been a proliferation of video recording formats throughout the world. From the 1/2 inch VHS and Beta formats at one end of the analog spectrum to the 19 mm D1 (CCIR601) and HDVS (SMPTE240 m) formats at the other end of the digital spectrum, there are over a dozen video recording formats used in the industry. As a result, video processing and distribution equipment manufacturers are burdened with manufacturing multiple models for the recording formats they elected to support. Thus, it is desirable to have a video processing and distribution system architecture that can be easily adapted to different video recording formats.
Additionally, while each of the recording formats is different, they all share one thing in common in that formatting data are embedded and intermixed with the video image data. The formatting data must be processed in conjunction with the video image data, thereby increasing processing and distribution time. With the advent of high performance video processing and distribution applications, such as on-demand cable television and on-demand direct satellite broadcast, the additional processing and distribution time has become increasingly undesirable. Thus, it is also desirable to have a video processing and distribution system architecture that can improve processing and distribution performance.
The advent of ISO and ANSI standards for instrument and digital data, ANSI ID-1 and ISO/ANSI DD-1, which have no formatting data embedded and intermixed with the instrument and digital data, provides a new opportunity for achieving improvement in video processing and distribution performance. It is further desirable to have a video processing and distribution system architecture that exploits these standards.
As will be disclosed, the present invention provides a high performance video processing and distribution system architecture that uses recording format independent hierarchical storages and processors, achieving the above described desired results for enhanced performance.